SNP’s new style just like the bad old days

THE First Minister opened her party’s conference in Aberdeen with a piece of slipperiness that makes her muchvaunted ‘new type of politics’ look very much like the politics of old.

Nicola Sturgeon ruled out her party including a commitment to hold another referendum on independence in its manifesto for the Holyrood elections next year. She cooed that even a massive win in those elections would not trigger another damaging vote.

So far so good. But then came the suggestion that other factors might force a rethink.

These included a British exit from the EU which, Miss Sturgeon warned darkly, would breach the terms under which the 2014 referendum was held. (No mention, of course, that a second referendum would itself be a breach of her ‘once in a lifetime’ promise on the original vote.)

Pressed on what would create the conditions for a fresh vote, she said: ‘It will be down to whether we judge, I judge, that people who voted No last year have changed their minds.’

In short, the SNP will – in an astonishing piece of selfish opportunism – sit tight until they think they can win and then find some pretence to plunge the country into another unnecessary bout of constitutional quarrelling.

How galling that all this is wrapped up in pious talk of respecting the result of the 2014 referendum when, in fact, much is being done to undermine and subvert its clear result.

It is worth remembering too that the SNP’s entire economic case for separation was based on oil, the black gold that would make us one of the globe’s wealthiest small countries.

John Swinney still cannot quite bring himself to admit that he got the pivotal oil revenue calculations – the very underpinnings of his fledgling state – so horribly wrong, admitting only: ‘What it demonstrates is the figure that we used had not transpired.’

New politics? Don’t believe a word.